Physical Layer Security for UAV-Assisted IoT Data Collection in the Presence of an Aerial Eavesdropper

In this paper, we study physical layer security of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted communication system, where a UAV collects data from a sensor node and UAV-eavesdropper tends to overhear confidential information. In particular, assuming Fisher-Snedecor fading environment, we derive the closed-form expression of the intercept probability and we examine the effect of different system/channel parameters on this performance metric. Numerical results are also presented to verify analytical result; and to highlight the impact of specific fading/shadowing conditions over the main-UAV link and UAV-eavesdropper’s link, as well as the impact of UAVs’ positions.